Your Cheapest Ideas

[Jonofwrath]

Powered doors operate the way temperature control units work, with three different states:

1) Off - colonist has switched this door into fully manual mode, no power drain, operates like an unpowered door.

2) Low - door is on and can can open quickly, but isn't being used so power draw is quite low.

3) High - door is on and has been used recently, power drain temporarily spikes to power motor.

I don't know if there's a practical code reason why this hasn't been done before, but the current state of powered doors being perpetually ON (there's no off switch) and constantly draining large amounts of power is a bit unrealistic and frustrating. If an eclipse hits, I can turn off all my lights and other non-essentials, but doors just keep draining no matter what.

+1

[giannikampa]

 
                                        Jetpacks!

- worn in the armor slot.

- you fly! no bad leg problems anymore: sets speed of the wearer at a value deponding on the quality, ignores floors and things speed debuff (will you be faster than a thrumbo?).

- (acceleration mechanics?).

- very fragile: low hp, high deterioration.

- you float some centimeters from the ground.. may or may not require a proper puffpuff animation, no more.

- when stopping from moving, but not a further move action, the first action takes some seconds, this simulates landing time.

- (if you could implement some sort of energy to refill, that would be outsanding)

[Jonofwrath]

Wheelchairs might be a little more realistic 😉
Not a cheap idea though!

[Jonofwrath]

Generic animal names such as "Chick 1" change as the animal ages. So 'Chick 1' might become 'Hen 3' when it comes of age.

[InCreator]

Most of it should be cheap.

* Make cats meow less. On full speed, it's full concert all time.

* There is zero need for stuff lying on the ground to be in locked state by default. I'm sure every player in every new colony spends first 10-15 minutes of play time just for zooming in and out, doubleclicking and trying to find and unlock all locked resources. Why?

* Make animal hauling and owner following work for real (I doesn't at the moment. My husky is always wandering around far from owner even though fully trained and I've see him help with carrying farm crops only once during 4 hours of playing - and I don't know what even triggered this helpful, rare sight).

* Muffalos sleeping in bedroom (because there's animal bed) looks funny, but weird

* Animal release should be automatic and animals surely should outpace their owners! Right now, I click release and War Zoo™ arrives from hell-knows-where only when owner is already ripped apart and bleeding out

* Instead of very complex and very static area system, I'd love if I could just click on a room, and have "no pets allowed" button somewhere. Might be as simple as to mark door regions around room with similar flag that works for wild animals. No more muffalos crapping up my hospital while we have a flu breakout! Or wargs having lavish dinner parties in my food storage room while my colonists are breaking sweat at mines.

* I often wish my colonists would have some kind of schedule. Like breakfasts together. A hour in living room in the evening. Only thing that's more or less syncronized is sleep time right now. Once again, area/restraint system is very little of help here, I'd rather not use it.

* Colonists should be more cooperative generally. Right now, every colony feels like a factory where no worker knows others. Instead of priority system, I wish I had a designated cook that gets up half a hour (or whatever that is in game time), prepares breakfast for all and lays the table.
Or entire colony would go harvesting crops together, instead of entire field of dropped potatoes (no one's hauling!) for half of the autumn... or fight fire together, instead of sleeping peacefully while half of house is burning... or go hunting together. And always help a fellow colonist who's being chased by crazy squirrel, instead of watching clouds next to him or whatever.

Priority system is still weird and the moment you turn it to manual, goes broken quickly.

* Speaking of priorities... cleaning should be different.
Unless you have a single, otherwise talentless colonist assigned to only clean from noon till dusk, every colony looks like Queen's nest from Alien movie. This is not natural nor realistic. Cleaning takes way too much time, has way too little effect, lasts way too short and is way too low on priority list. Also, unless born without arms, I cannot image someone that wouldn't be able to clean (or haul, for that matter) at all. I'd make cleaning essential and semi-automatic skill for everyone, and maybe balance this with traits like "messy" and "orderly" or something

* I think (some of the) hauling should be a part of optimized movement. I know it's tricky to code.
But miner coming home, should grab a handful or steel, going towards home anyways. A plant cutter should take some potatoes with him if he's finished cutting and goes to eat lunch. Builder going to storage to grab lumber for construction could also take limestone blocks he just deconstructed from reclamined wall. And so on.

Basically, colonist, each time when going somewhere (unless it's a fire or fight), should check few nearby regions for items that need hauling, and few regions around his intended waypoint if there's suitable storage area nearby.

I imagine technically, each item that can be and should hauled has a passive waypoint before being picked up. So empty-handed colonist could easily check if him going to waypoint would help item to get closer to its passive waypoint and if so, just carry it or take a little detour and finish it's path.

I can see how it could cause some confusion for player at first, but the optimizing effect would be well worth it. Right now, great chunk of "playing the game" is just waiting and waiting for mundane things to get done.
Cutting up 50-tile rice field is guaranteed to have a field full of harvested, unhauled rice for next two seasons. Unless you go through priorities and make sure that hauling is ONLY thing your 6 colonists will do now... (still) for a whole season.

* If there's starvation, colonists' AI should be intelligent enough to automatically harvest raspberry bush next to base door instead of dying due hunger next to it. There's enough micromanagement as it is

* I think rather cheap would be to remove some cheap stuff and replace it with something else.
Stone floor textures are is cheapest stuff I've seen and could surely use some variety, even if they're still placeholder. Adding few new textures shouldn't take any time at all.

* Ceiling lights. Or invisible ones. Whatever.
I don't know why, but I make 2-tile wide corridors ONLY because a light the size of a full tile in 1-tile wide corridor feels wrong and impassable (even thought it's really not). Alpha or not, if we're staring at same stuff for hours and hours (and Rimworld is very slow game), aesthetics start to matter.

* Time to remove hoppers from nutrient paste dispenser, due temperature system. I wanted to have NPD as a backup, but gave up, because colonists started filling hoppers with food instead of storing it in dedicated, sub-zero temperature area. Which let food go rot.
So remove hoppers. Or, justify crazy amount of power nutrient paste dispenser takes by having hoppers next to it be liquid nitrogen-cooled or something.

* Squirrels, hare, etc offer too much resistance, bruises and infectious bites. It's funny to see colonists die, but it's way out of realistic balance right now. Snapping a neck isn't that hard.

* That's quite cheap to make but awesome to have: extra point allocation system in character creation a la Neo Scavenger, Wizardry 8 or Crusader Kings 2. You get your random rolled stats, and you get some extra points to invest in skills, so you could fine-tune a bit. A bit, not change colonist entirely. You can take a good trait and have less points to distribute or bad trait/injury and have more points, etc.
But I'm sure it's suggested already and not once. Crusader Kings 2 pulled this off perfectly imo, by connecting "points" directly to age (you can be a master schemer, but it took 20 years of your characters lifetime to get that good... or something). Rimworld could add injuries and chronic diseases, peg legs, etc to age to make it even more costly.

* Building sets. I pick wall and floor type and drag a rectangle, just like zones. And a house will be built.

[Songleaves]

Most of it should be cheap.

* Make cats meow less. On full speed, it's full concert all time.

The game should cater first to people on normal speed. Although differential rate at which meowing occurs based on the speed of game could be done, although that might not be considered cheap.

* There is zero need for stuff lying on the ground to be in locked state by default. I'm sure every player in every new colony spends first 10-15 minutes of play time just for zooming in and out, doubleclicking and trying to find and unlock all locked resources. Why?

I believe this might have something to do with items in unexplored areas being tradable and accessible if they aren't forbidden, but I don't know.

* Make animal hauling and owner following work for real (I doesn't at the moment. My husky is always wandering around far from owner even though fully trained and I've see him help with carrying farm crops only once during 4 hours of playing - and I don't know what even triggered this helpful, rare sight).

Animals only follow owner if owner is drafted.

[Justas love]

When you are at a crafting bench lets say the stonecutter. There is a setting that let's you choose what skill the colonist has to be to craft, well what about a button that does this ''allow colonists with passion only'' so if my colonist doesnt have a burning crafting skill then he won't be able to craft at the stonecutter bench

[Ace_livion]

in the stone cutting there's a slight problem.
if you wish to have someone cut 200 sandstone. it somehow count all the stone bricks you already have.
so a Until 200 Sandstone is considered done if there's already 300marble....

[Justas love]

in the stone cutting there's a slight problem.
if you wish to have someone cut 200 sandstone. it somehow count all the stone bricks you already have.
so a Until 200 Sandstone is considered done if there's already 300marble....

There is a mod called stonecutting tweak wich basicaly adds diffrent bills to stonecut difrent type of blocks

[Spectreofoz]

Lawns - use with growing zones - slightly higher Beauty score then tiles floors , maybe equal to or higher then smooth floor
                                               - Managed my cleaner

Bridger's and piers -  making pathways over swamps and water

Worship Areas and Shrines - Worship areas for joy bit like a TV  (Room), Shrines more personal to pawns - statue/art could be make as shrine to be visited for joy and also has Beauty score.

[Vaporisor]

Lawns - use with growing zones - slightly higher Beauty score then tiles floors , maybe equal to or higher then smooth floor

Man!  I would love this!  As it stands, I do faux lawns by using green carpet outdoors.  Astroturf win!  Hay doesn't look right either for the job.

[NabsII]

Arsonist Trait .... An admiration to setting fires... could have a chance to randomly set fires especially during joy designated time..... high mood boost for holding fire related weapons ....

[king komodo]

Arsonist Trait .... An admiration to setting fires... could have a chance to randomly set fires especially during joy designated time..... high mood boost for holding fire related weapons ....

Perhaps pyromaniac would fit a bit better but not a bad idea. I'm certain I would love to have a charge rifle but incendiary and grenade launchers sound like even more fun.

[blub01]

Most of it should be cheap.

* Make cats meow less. On full speed, it's full concert all time.

The game should cater first to people on normal speed. Although differential rate at which meowing occurs based on the speed of game could be done, although that might not be considered cheap.

dude. nobody uses normal speed for the majority of time played. normal speeds is for dangerous situations where micromanaging is important to keep your colonists alive, like raids or infestations. playing only on normal speed means you'll get really, really bored. I honestly think that as it is, we don't have enough time acceleration.

[joshuacoops]

perhaps adding multiple levels/floors to the games as when I'm playing, I hate expanding outwards as in some cases its difficult to expand and I really love playing in the tropical forest but I can't because then I'm using nearly the hole map and its harder to maintain and keep my colonists safe. I think this is a good idea as your not going to use up all the land for rooms you could place on top of, this would be amazing if you added multiple levels/floors to the games

stairs cost: 25 metal - 75 wood
stairs: W,L,H - 1x4x1
labour cost: 20s